


Skin Deep Worth

by AshVee



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Gen, Octavia Character Study, Speed Read - 5 Minutes Tops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 20:19:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7655302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshVee/pseuds/AshVee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Octavia Blake was a beautiful girl that drew the attention of a grounder. She was growing though. There was more worth to her than her skin. There was more to her than the beaten thing the Arc made. She would learn how to show them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skin Deep Worth

Octavia had always been a beautiful girl. Perfect skin. Perfect hair. Big dark eyes that even some of the guards stopped to look at too long. Everyone on the Arc praised her for it, and when they'd come to the ground, her looks had drawn affections. She'd used them. She'd played them. She'd prided herself upon them.

Shame burned her as she spat a mouthful of blood into the muddy ground at her feet. Dark eyes tracked the grounder warriors around her, picking out some that had stood around while she had been beaten bloody. Her skin was marred with bruises and cuts, none so serious that they would cause her damage but sore and present long enough that she was more than just pretty Octavia Blake.

There was a fleshy bit missing from the inside of her right cheek, and even as she probed it viciously with her tongue, it did not hurt as much as Lincoln's absence.

Had the grounder outcast been present, Octavia was sure he'd have put a stop to her little scene, but it was important, damn it. It was so very important. Marcus Kane didn't realize the olive branch that had been extended when some of the grounder warriors had been willing to take his instruction, wanted to learn the ways of the Sky People. He didn't realize that while yes, they had better weapons and yes, they were trained soldiers and yes, they would probably win had they been placed on an even playing field with their tech in their own hands, it didn't amount to a pile of steaming shit.

Because they weren't placed on an even field. The grounders knew the land, they knew the trees and the ways of the Mountain Men. And those skills, they weighed far more than any assault rifle that Kane could sling over their shoulders.

It was important, then, that they earned the right to the knowledge that lurked in their minds. It was important that they had the trust of the men and women that would fight beside them. It was important that they not look at her and see a little girl.

She bit down on a tender spot of her tongue, relishing in the taste of fresh blood that welled up with the pain. It had been so very important and yet, as the grounders walked around her, they still had an air of condescension about them, as if what she had done, what she had tried to do, amounted to nothing.

It probably did, she decided in that moment. It meant nothing because she was just one woman, one girl really, and she was as useless to them as the assault rifles that Kane offered.

Indra watched her from not far off, her dark eyes silently judging, measuring, weighing her and finding her wanting. Octavia tried to sit straighter, be more than the little girl that had gotten her backside beaten bloody.

The warrior sat down beside her, and the words that fell off of her lips were like honeyed barbs, sweet things that had the capacity to rip into her, change her completely, and leave her scarred and bleeding. They offered the end of Octavia Blake, beautiful to look at, easy on the eyes but not worth much else. They offered a change to everything that she ever was and everything she ever could be.

Octavia welcomed them.

**Author's Note:**

> Eh. Not sure how I felt about this when I first wrote it. Still not sure now.


End file.
